Greater Than Code
The Human Side of Technology
About the show
For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code.
Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript.
Greater Than Code on social media
Episodes
-
137: Pairing & Sharing with Llewellyn Falco and Clare Macrae
July 3rd, 2019 | 1 hr 8 mins
Llewellyn Falco and Clare Macrae talk about the special bond and kinship they have formed via pair programming, as well as the sharing and writing of documentation from the perspective of what the human reading it is trying to accomplish.
-
136: Addressing Technical Friction
June 26th, 2019 | 55 mins 5 secs
In this episode, the panelists talk about a Tweet of Sam’s that had recently gotten some attention re: responsible refactoring and technical friction. They discuss reacting to other people’s code with kindness and empathy, requesting code walkthroughs, being explicit and clearly stating the problems you are trying to solve within your codebases before refactoring, and what to do if you experience resistance.
-
135: Intentional Learning with Saron Yitbarek
June 19th, 2019 | 1 hr 4 mins
Saron Yitbarek talks about what it means to be an expert in “Newbie-ism”, explores the idea that coding is a reflection of people, and shares why lexicon and creating a shared language amongst a community matters.
-
134: Building Profiles with Halleemah Nash
June 12th, 2019 | 54 mins 51 secs
Halleemah Nash talks about the ideas of “cultural fluency" and “urban authenticity”: operating authentically and being who you are in any space you are in. Other concepts discussed are existing in Other spaces, active listening, and building bridges to change the complexion of the workforce by shortening the distance for Generation Z.
-
133: Dark Horses with Chanté Thurmond
June 5th, 2019 | 1 hr 6 mins
Chanté Thurmond talks about spotting talent (dark horses), perceiving talent/potential, confronting biases and societal categorization, identity as a feedback loop, and using metrics to improve organizational D&I.
-
132: Distilling the Hailstorm with Claire Lew
May 29th, 2019 | 43 mins 2 secs
Claire Lew of Know Your Team, joins the panel to talk about bad bosses: panelist experiences, symptoms of poor leadership and management, and asks the question, “how do we know that we, ourselves are not bad bosses?”
-
131: Poo-Covered Rocks with Cat Swetel
May 22nd, 2019 | 52 mins 59 secs
Cat Swetel joins the show to talk about managing a platform with ancient value, exploring systems, Wardley mapping, and looking for poo-covered rocks: the importance of observation and reflection.
-
130: Acceptance is the First Step with Britni Alexander
May 15th, 2019 | 52 mins 52 secs
In the first half of the show, Britni Alexander talks about resilience: seeing failure as an opportunity, not wallowing in failure, and the ultimate acceptance of failure.
Then she shares a bunch of lies that developers tell themselves and others including: who is or isn’t a programmer, what it’s actually like to be a programmer, how to measure success as a programmer, and more.
-
129: Bringing The Fun with Lori Olson
May 8th, 2019 | 57 mins 26 secs
Lori Olson talks about bringing the fun to the jobs we do ourselves, as well as cultural differences between programming language communities, thoughts on platformification, mentoring novices and beginners, and creating gaming tutorials to get people (and kids especially) excited about programming.
-
128: Finding and Cultivating Community Leaders with Ben Pollard
May 1st, 2019 | 58 mins 40 secs
In this episode, Ben Pollard talks about starting Local Welcome, a charity in the UK that makes it fun and easy to cook and eat with refugees in folks' local community. Humanization, cognitive biases, and heuristics are discussed, as well as the ideas of humans thriving together and measuring success.
-
127: Hope and Suffering with Amy Newell
April 24th, 2019 | 1 hr 6 mins
Amy Newell talks about suffering and sustaining hope and faith in the face of what feels like no hope and no faith, living a valuable life vs a happy life, bringing your “whole self” into the workplace, changing culture in organizations, and bipolar disorder.
-
126: Asking Powerful Questions with Suzan Bond
April 17th, 2019 | 52 mins 45 secs
Suzan Bond, Coraline, and John discuss blending technology with coaching and humans, managing and working on distributed teams, autonomy, listening to yourself and your intuition, and developing solid leadership skills.
-
125: Everything is Communication with Sam Aaron
April 10th, 2019 | 1 hr 8 mins
Sam Aaron chats with the panel about creating Sonic Pi, the importance of patience and delayed gratification, logging, and fixed tempo, clocks, and time.
-
124: Navigating Neurodiversity with Helen Needham
April 3rd, 2019 | 52 mins 28 secs
Helen Needham, an autistic person and an advocate of promoting the value of neurodivergent thinking, talks about decoding people, the intersection of empathy and neurodiversity, being deliberate as a survival skill, and paying attention to EQ: emotional intelligence.
-
123: BOOK CLUB! Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
March 27th, 2019 | 1 hr 43 secs
This show is a group discussion about the insights inside Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig. The panelists consider how the book can help us to understand the culture war that is going on in the world right now and what we can do as individuals, communities, companies, and as an industry of software engineers, to build bridges that can help bring humans back together again at all scales.
-
122: Surfing with Michael "GeePaw" Hill
March 20th, 2019 | 1 hr 5 mins
Michael “GeePaw” Hill talks about autopoiesis (say what??), the cost of certainty, doubt vs narrowing, thin and thick culture, and occupational game playing.